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Elfwreck · 12-10-2009, 09:45 AM

I preferred PDB, and used PML and Dropbook to make PDBs with images & links.

I suspect that there might be a way to automate links, but not image conversion, because that would require images that fit within eReader's specific limitations, and no simple conversion program is going to do that.

Palm Markup Language is simpler than HTML (mostly 'cos it's a lot more limited), and most of it can be placed with find-and-replace functions in Word. Images & URLs can't, but they're not very complicated; PML doesn't have a steep learning curve.

I used to take HTML texts, copy-paste into Word, then use find-replace to put \i around the italics and \B around the bold text (have to remember to use "match caps" or it gets weird), then put \x and \c around chapter sections, then do some manual touchup to make sure the \c parts always end on a new line.

Then I'd make images--open Photoshop (or GIMP, which is free) and make sure the images were saved as PNG 8bit non-interlaced, into a folder called FILENAME_img. (And no more than 65kb each, which required downsampling sometimes. Making them no more than 320 pixels wide usually took care of that on its own.)

I rarely bothered with links, but sometimes I'd build a TOC. If I'd done it more, I think I would've learned to make macros that helped.

When I got the file done, I saved the Word doc (in case I needed to edit it later), copy-pasted the text into a TXT file, and then dropped that into Dropbook.

12-10-2009, 09:45 AM	#2
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,187 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	I preferred PDB, and used PML and Dropbook to make PDBs with images & links. I suspect that there might be a way to automate links, but not image conversion, because that would require images that fit within eReader's specific limitations, and no simple conversion program is going to do that. Palm Markup Language is simpler than HTML (mostly 'cos it's a lot more limited), and most of it can be placed with find-and-replace functions in Word. Images & URLs can't, but they're not very complicated; PML doesn't have a steep learning curve. I used to take HTML texts, copy-paste into Word, then use find-replace to put \i around the italics and \B around the bold text (have to remember to use "match caps" or it gets weird), then put \x and \c around chapter sections, then do some manual touchup to make sure the \c parts always end on a new line. Then I'd make images--open Photoshop (or GIMP, which is free) and make sure the images were saved as PNG 8bit non-interlaced, into a folder called FILENAME_img. (And no more than 65kb each, which required downsampling sometimes. Making them no more than 320 pixels wide usually took care of that on its own.) I rarely bothered with links, but sometimes I'd build a TOC. If I'd done it more, I think I would've learned to make macros that helped. When I got the file done, I saved the Word doc (in case I needed to edit it later), copy-pasted the text into a TXT file, and then dropped that into Dropbook.